Food Archive

Descending into the garden-level restaurant, I noticed my cell-phone reception dwindling. Wi-Fi flat-lined. Inside, the staff behaved more like librarians than servers and cooks. Dressed modestly in collared shirts buttoned high and tucked into pressed slacks and long skirts, they spoke in monotones...

He is the co-owner of Ciar Power Technology in Pesaro, a company that makes remote control mechanisms for reclining massage chairs. He holds 12 patents in that industry. But as an engineer who six years ago bought 150 acres of green hills outside the town of Monteciccardo, he couldn't help bringing his hard sciences approach to the softer world of olive oil production.

Their warm wide smiles would have been enough to invite us in. But as the Soru brothers open the screened door of their farm and dairy, they also offer a bottle of wine, a loaf of cheese, and a bag of flatbread. The flatbread is important to the snack—and to the brothers.

Pictures and memorabilia cover the walls of Rolando Ramoscelli's restaurant, but one black-and-white photo echoes his philosophy especially well. The portrait of 10 men seated around a table proclaims: family begins at the dinner table.

On a scalding afternoon in late June, Matteo Marchionni steps out of his house and into work boots encrusted with the dusty brown dirt of the surrounding orchard. Soon his wife, Michela Baldassarri, appears, and then his mother and father, also in their boots.

Pedra Gradl emerges from her stone farmhouse, a structure so draped with vines that they nearly engulf every visible window. She walks to a rustic picnic table where her husband, Siegfried, sits looking over the valley beneath the Apennine Mountains.

Carlo Cleri is a man out of place. A resident of Acqualagna, a city in central Italy coveted by gourmands the world-over for its pricey truffles, Cleri’s passion is cooking weeds. While others scramble to find the $300-per-ounce fungi, Cleri combs the same countryside hunting and collecting plants most people simply step on.

Urbino Now iPad App

Check out Urbino Now 2013, the interactive iPad magazine produced by our 2013 students.

Urbino Now 2013 – Video Magazine

Urbino Now 2013 is a travel television program focusing on food and wine in Urbino and the Marche region of Italy. This program was conceived and produced by seven students participating in ieiMedia’s summer study abroad program, Urbino Project 2013: Multimedia Journalism in Italy, in association with James Madison University’s School of Media Arts and Design.